A transformational journey into health and feelin' sexy!

Archive for January, 2014

Just a short update for today, I am officially halfway to my goal! I have less to lose now than I’ve already lost! 🙂

Also, when I began this diet I decided I would take progress pics in my wedding dress after every 20lbs, so I took my second set of pics the other day and the difference was very noticeable! Things like that make me feel like this is all worth it 🙂 I won’t be posting the progress pictures on here yet as I don’t want my fiance to stumble across them, but eventually I will.

Last little note I’ll mention is that I hit a very small plateau the past week or two, but managed to stumble upon the cure by accident! I managed to catch (another) cold last week, and in an attempt to kick its ass I started drinking a lot of water, and noticed almost immediately that the pounds started dropping off again. So, PSA for anyone reading this… drink lots of water!

Yep, I’m so so close to my half-way milestone it’s ridiculous 🙂 1.7lbs to go!

Of course, with my half-way marker also comes my second round of “how well does my wedding dress fit now?”. I’m super excited to see the difference, considering the difference I saw between my “before keto” wedding dress pic and my 20lbs down pic, I’m sure that 40lbs down will be even better 🙂

Anyways… my weight loss has been pretty steady for the last week, but before that I was on an unfortunate 3 week stall due to a keto experiment gone awry… I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say I won’t be making that mistake again any time soon! But the stall can easily account for why I haven’t had any real updates for awhile… but I’m back on track now! Unfortunately it’s looking like I probably won’t meet my goal weight by the wedding, but if I keep going at the pace I’m going now (approximately 10lbs/month average) I should be somewhere around 60-70lbs lost by the time it comes around, and I will be more than happy with that.

Wedding Dilemma

Speaking of the wedding… I had been thinking about keto and the wedding, and how I should approach the situation. There are two major issues when it comes to being in ketosis on my wedding day:

Wedding Cake. Let’s face it, I’m not going to not eat some of my own wedding cake. That’s just ridiculous. However, when your body is used to having less than 20g of carbs per day, and then you shove a piece of cake in your mouth that most likely adds up to around 40g of carbs… well, the after-effects are less than enjoyable. Typically within an hour or two you feel dizzy, nauseated, stomach cramps, etc. And I really don’t want that on my wedding day.

Alcohol Tolerance. The basic idea is, your body is no longer storing glycogen, and therefore no longer retaining water (glycogen molecules and water molecules are like best buds, when glycogen leaves, so does the water). Lower water levels in your body = less dilution for any alcohol you take in. Essentially, after one drink I’m well buzzed, after two I’m done. At the end of the day, I don’t want to be a sloppy bride.

So, I could go off keto the day before or the day of, but as I said, there are definitely some negative side effects of suddenly increasing your carb intake. I could go off keto a few days before, but as soon as I do that, my body will begin to store glycogen, and therefore begin to retain water, and I’ll likely put on between 5 and 10lbs of water weight within a few days… which is easy enough to lose after going back on keto, but given that my dress would have just been altered, could cause some issues.

So of course, I put the question out there to /r/keto, and of course, I got a lot of junk replies like “don’t cheat.” and “don’t worry, one day off won’t kill you” (umm… okay, I know I’ll lose the weight afterwards, it’s the negative side effects I’m thinking of… y’know… trying to sort out a strategy?). I sometimes wonder if people even bother to read the posts they comment on… I even had one person tell me in all bold writing that at the end of the day the only and most important thing is that I get back onto keto afterwards. Umm… no… sorry… sure, getting back onto keto is very important, but I’m pretty sure my wedding is more important…

But the replies weren’t all bad 🙂 I especially appreciated one post by /u/Naonin who suggested a lot of supplements and strategies for minimizing the impact of switching off ketosis, among many other users who gave some very helpful tips. If anyone is considering something like what I just wrote about and would like some tips, definitely check out my post and the replies 🙂

Game made me chubby 😦

Wii Fit Plus

So Jason bought me a Wii Fit Balance Board and Wii Fit Plus for Christmas (yay!) and I finally got around to trying it out this week 🙂 I found it pretty cool and fun, but as sad as it is, I think my favourite part was that you can create a profile for your pets 😛 I made one for Stormy and afterwards when I was doing the bike riding activity, I rode past him and he chased after me for the rest of the activity! It was so cute…

One part I didn’t like so much was that it made my mii chubby 😛 As soon as it took my weight and determined my BMI, my mii looked like it exploded into a beer gut. Either way, it gave me a good workout, I burned about 260 calories and was pretty sore the next day. I think I’ll probably use it more often for awhile as I’ve gotten bored of rowing for the time being and haven’t done it in quite awhile.

I get by… with a little help… from my friends

So I managed to get my best friend onto keto recently, it wasn’t really a hard sell as he doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth and his favourite food is cheese with some cheese on it. It’s cool to have someone on the same diet that I can talk to, though it’s looking like he’s slipping lately and not taking it too seriously. I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up I guess, but I really hope he sticks to it and sees the results he’s looking for 🙂

Also, my good friend and neighbour came by today and gave me $20 to put into my fat fashion fund 🙂 I thought that was really nice of her and I totally didn’t expect it, it’s so nice to have people around me that are following and supporting my journey 🙂

One of the most common struggles keto’ers run into is flack from the general public. A common saying in the community is “the second rule of keto is don’t talk about keto”. I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but when it comes down to it, the common idea of what is and isn’t a healthy diet is very outdated, being based on “research” (I use this term loosely) conducted 50 years ago. There is even some speculation that the “low-fat movement” that began in the 70’s correlates perfectly to the timelines of the national obesity, diabetes, and heart disease epidemics. Some countries, such as Sweden, have even begun to see the light and have changed their national dietary guidelines to favour low-carb over low-fat.

But for some reason… low-carb/high-fat is still seen as “unhealthy” to most people.

So… here we go. I have poked through some studies and posts on /r/keto, (I’d like to give a special thanks to /u/gogge for posting many of these), and have compiled a list of some of my favourite studies, articles, and general links about the benefits of low-carb and ketosis, and dispelling the myths surrounding this lifestyle. I hope this helps some of you who may have that brother-in-law or second cousin who went to college for nutrition and thinks that low-fat is the only way to go 🙂

A chart comparing the weight loss comparison between LC and LF in the 23 studies.

What Do 18 Studies Say about Low-Carb Diets?“subjects…lost more weight during six months on a carbohydrate-restricted diet than on a calorie and fat-restricted diet, with a relative improvement in insulin sensitivity and triglyceride levels.”

Long term effects of ketogenic diet in obese subjects with high cholesterol level.“This study shows the beneficial effects of ketogenic diet following its long term administration in obese subjects with a high level of total cholesterol. Moreover, this study demonstrates that low carbohydrate diet is safe to use for a longer period of time in obese subjects with a high total cholesterol level and those with normocholesterolemia.”

Low Carb Diet Research“The research which highlights the safety, indeed the necessity in some cases, and the efficacy of carbohydrate restriction can no longer be denied or ignored.”

Is ketosis dangerous?“You may have heard from your doctor that ketosis is a life-threatening condition. If so, your doctor is confusing diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) with nutritional ketosis, or keto-adaptation.”

Effects of eating frequency on metabolic rate (related to intermittent fasting – a common meal schedule for keto’ers)“After 36 hours of fasting, an increase in metabolic rate is seen (and does not change further when measured at 72 hours).” “Alternate Day Fasting (not eating every other day) does not result in a decrease in metabolic rate after 22 days”

How to Win an Argument With a Nutritionist“Many dietitians are NOT basing their nutrition advice on the latest science. The general guidelines are completely outdated. They have barely changed in the past few decades, even though nutrition science has advanced greatly.”